AUTOESCAPE / HTML
HTML Escape
Convert reserved characters to HTML entities, or decode entities back into text.
HTML escape / unescape
Turn reserved characters into HTML entities, or bring them back.
Ready when you are. Conversion happens as you type.
HTML: show the characters, not the markup.
HTML uses angle brackets to identify tags and an ampersand to begin a character reference. If you want to display a tag as an example rather than have the browser interpret it, those characters need another representation.
HTML Escape converts five characters: &, <, >, the double quote and the single quote. For example, an opening angle bracket becomes <. The escaped text still describes the same characters, but it can be read as text in the appropriate HTML context.
A real example
<span title="Tom & Jerry">5 < 10</span>
<span title="Tom & Jerry">5 < 10</span>
This is useful when you are writing documentation, showing a markup sample, or preparing plain text for an HTML text context. Copy the escaped result into the intended destination; the workbench itself does not render your input as HTML.
When to use Unescape
If a snippet contains < and &, Unescape turns those entity references back into their characters. This decoder handles semicolon-terminated named and numeric entities, including decimal and hexadecimal numeric references. Entity-like text that is not recognized is left as-is.
Decoding is one pass, not a repeated cleanup loop. If your input is &lt;, one pass produces <, not an opening angle bracket. That distinction matters when something has already been escaped twice.
A mistake worth avoiding
Do not escape the same text again just because the output looks unfamiliar. Escaping & once gives &. Escaping that output again gives &amp;. Keep an original copy and apply the conversion at the point where your destination actually needs it.